100% agree, they must not give out that info. Let’s be real honest here folks, the optimizers will continue until it no longer benefits them. All the talk about how things are balanced between offense and defense is just that and it only benefits the optimizers. If there was really no advantage for them to optimize today and it was fully as even as they would like us all to believe, they would stop doing it tomorrow.

Thanks Tosti. We are basically on the same page. I will elaborate on my use of the term optimise tho, as is different to our conception of engineered.
To optimise, is to extract the best possible use of weight/ off power, as well as being able to defend at its weight ( except extreme), for the current meta. Before engineering, it was the perma bases, combined with big heroes. Then we got the defenceless, or low weight, offence heavy accounts. At present, it is probably around the 9.11 area, where the biggest advantage lies, although a shift appears to be happening again, just at present.
I don't regard optimising as purely engineering ( as we perceive it), as most maxer/ balance build accounts used in war, will generally follow some kind of .5 route. Is why I say "most" people optimise. It would be counter productive to not try and optimise a war account. Only some people take it to more extreme than others ( now I am talking engineering).
Whatever they have in store for the future, optimising will prevail, although it may take on a completely different appearance.

I guess my thoughts are - if we all know the ranking system then it is harder for someone with more time and energy to exploit the rest. Obviously, some people are always going to try to optimize, the casual player suffers. Based on the rankings, it appears the benefit is to engineer, get ranked low, have lower expectations on offense and rack up up the stars. It feels like the matchmaking is totally broken and the programmers are idiots. If we could actually see the rankings maybe we could understand it better and not think they are just incompetent.

I've been warring since the first day wars came on line. There are times now when there is no reason to even fill the war clan castles. The match is over before it begins. One side will have 3 TH11's with wardens and the other none - ♥♥♥♥ like that. I would like to know how they can screw up a great game that much. Something is broke and its not fun but i dont want to quit so i came here looking for answers. I then learned the war rankings were defense only not total war weight. If we could see total weight maybe we can figure out how to even it up and make it fun again. Ha - lets make clash fun again.